Thank God It's Monday®! Blog

Anyone who thinks there aren’t two sides to a conflict probably isn’t in one. Can you relate?

The time that something is going wrong is also about the time that most people dig those heels right in to make the case that they aren’t wrong.

What is it with whoever said there was something wrong with being wrong? We’re wrong all the time.

Being wrong is what we do. We’re humans. We can’t possibly be right all the time.

Instead, why don’t we just say, “Oh, that’s interesting. Tell me more about that. I want to understand. How can we work this out together? Sounds like we disagree on this? I wonder what the common ground is? Tell me what do you think we could do to find a common ground to move ahead on this?”

The fine art of the dialogue to work through a complex situation is a skill that we need to figure out as we put our big boy and big girl pants on in life.

We learned our conflict resolution skills, sadly, in about the fourth grade… and most of us have really never gotten more development since that time.

It’s not our fault. But, now it’s time to figure this out. Because we live in a conflict-ridden world.

Work is filled with conflict. Life is filled with conflict.

Learning the skills of conflict, of staying calm, of asking questions.

Don’t assume that you’re right. Be curious about the other side. And bring your best, most respectful self forth.

That takes you through the complexity of conflict so that you always understand the relationship is always more important than being right.

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Can’t seem to operate under the principle that there’s no problem asking a question, huh?

Diane Sawyer says, “a criticism is just a really bad way of making a request, so why not just make the request.” 

It’s so easy to go into a victim mentality and build a case against something when instead you could be asking for someone to do something about it.

We all tend to go into victimhood occasionally because we get something from it.

Whenever we’re a victim and don’t get what we want, we get to blame somebody. Then, everybody feels sorry for us, and they say “Oh, you poor thing!” and quite frankly, if we’re really truthful, there’s a need inside of us that is met by that. But it isn’t our healthiest self.

We’re far better off making a request for what we want.

Let’s face it, the world goes a lot faster when people just say “can you give that to me, we need to move over here right now, I need you to change this report.”

Simply make the request as opposed to saying “I don’t like the report and he never moves over where he needs to be.”

You can see the negative energy that comes along with a negative request as Diane Sawyer calls it. So, why not be more like your cat rather than your dog and assume that you can ask for things that you might get?

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Leslie Charles said, “Of course I’m yelling! I’m wrong!”

You have to love the honesty there. But don’t you even see that as being true for a lot of people?

When they start yelling and needing to be right, it’s usually because they haven’t taken in the other side of the story into consideration. Oftentimes, it’s easy in this world to forget the fine art of dialogue.

I have had a dear friend for the last 20 years, and one of the things I love about him is he’s a brilliant, brilliant man at the very top of his profession. Anytime you bring up any subject at all, he’s intrigued.

No matter how much information he already has, he’s always open to listening to another perspective. And he says: “Hmm, there are always more sides to the story” and “I’m curious.”

What if the whole world operated like this? This is the world where we’ve forgotten how to have a dialogue. Where we read the paper, and just go with some dogma… not even curious about another side.

Wouldn’t the world be better if we all just had open hearts to learn from each other and say: “Hmm, that’s interesting, tell me more” as opposed to waiting for them to stop talking so you can teach them why they’re wrong.

I think there are a lot of opportunities to be open to being wrong. Be inquisitive. And be okay with that.

Why not? And here’s the answer anyway… we’re always wrong about everything anyway, there will always be new information that proves everything we know to be true to be wrong.

So get over yourself. It’s time to open up to dialogue.

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Collette says: “The better we feel about ourselves, the fewer times we have to knock someone down  to feel tall.” 

When we say something negative about another person, it’s important for us to ask ourselves, where does that come from?

We’ve all done it before. When we do it, it usually doesn’t help the situation, and it certainly doesn’t help the person.

This usually comes from someone who doesn’t feel good about themselves.

When we’re hurting, we want to create the impression that we’re above others and that we are doing things right, and that they aren’t. That’s not the best because as soon as we say something negative about someone else, about what they’re not doing, or how they’re doing right in front of others, we’re only making the situation worse.

So today, get into action by saying only good things about others. And if something’s wrong and not okay, it doesn’t mean that we ignore it and don’t deal with it but that we’re not talking down to the person.

Instead, we’re talking about what’s wrong with a process, what’s wrong with the outcome, as opposed to knocking down a human.

Be conscious of this because those words can be hurtful. And as you knock somebody else down, sometimes they stay down. And that’s going to be hard to live with.

Bring people’s spirits up instead, by only saying positive things about people behind their back. And if it’s a management thing where you have to talk about what isn’t done, that’s different.

Bring those challenges to managers with a request for a change, not a complaint.

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I read a quote recently. It said: “People think it is about finding a job they love. It’s not. It’s about loving the job you have.”

Yes, It’s about loving the job that you have.

You know what, you probably have a great job.

I guarantee you, while not perfect, you have some teammates who are pretty good human beings. And there’s probably one or two things about your supervisor that are probably pretty cool. And your CEO may not be perfect but probably has many good qualities. And your clients, oh my goodness, you get to make a difference in their lives!

It’s just not that bad.

The problem with switching jobs is everywhere you go there you are.

If you don’t like this job, statistically, it’s been proven that if you don’t like this job, you won’t like the next one… the one after that… and the one after that.

It is a skill set to decide to love your job, and it requires two things.

Number one, you get good at it, which means education never ends. Be a voracious leader and a learner to make sure that you understand things in the best possible way.

Number two, make a decision to be fantastic at what you do and to bring joy to what you do every day. It is a decision. Happiness is a decision.

The Dalai Lama said it best: “Happiness is a decision.” When you look at that decision, you’ll live a life that is happy.

So… stop looking for a new job to make you happy.

Start loving the job you have.

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